


39

by snowdrops



Series: This is Where Our Story Ends [3]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: (mentions of it), Bookman duties, F/M, Original Character Death(s), in the end who's the one who couldn't let go?, mentions of the other characters only
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6860392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/pseuds/snowdrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And this is where our story starts, again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	39

_July 1854_

Fate works in strange ways, she thinks to herself. She definitely wasn’t expecting to bump into someone she had buried in her memories when she decided to go for a walk along the riverbank.

His hair is as unruly and as bright as she remembers, but his features have aged. His green eye is world-weary and there are small lines between his brows and by his mouth.

His look of shock mirrors hers at first but he composes himself quickly enough.  They’re into their thirties now, and she’s developed a bit of a limp. The Dark Boots took their toll on her body as she aged, but her limp is nothing compared to Allen’s arm, which is all but paralyzed now.

“Lenalee?” he ventures. She nods, then scrutinizes him. Who is this man in front of her? What is his name?

“Who are you?”

There is a long pause, an appraising raise of a red eyebrow. “The name’s Lavi. Just Lavi.”

All the implications of that statement sink in on her in the silence that follows after.

* * *

He’s just getting some fresh air when he sees her, dark green hair, back straight and limping slightly. It’s both unexpected but at the same time unsurprising – he’s been searching all over the world for her, using what information he can get his hands on. He found out that she and her brother had moved to Italy, but in which state he wasn’t sure. Running into her on this riverbank, he’s more shocked by how she looks than how they’d met.

She looks as beautiful as she had when he last saw her, ablaze with green fire in the destruction of a grayscale battlefield.

* * *

They head for a café at Lenalee’s recommendation. There is mostly silence between them, but in the silence is buried tension. Once they’re settled at the table, he asks her for forgiveness. He doesn’t say what there is to be forgiven, but she shakes her head.

“There was never anything to forgive, Lavi.”

* * *

For the first time in 17 years, she updates him on the latest news of their friends from the former Black Order in person. (For the first time in 17 years, he hears his own name roll off her tongue)

Allen bumped into Howard Link some months after Kanda’s passing. Link offered him board and shelter in exchange for work at a restaurant, and they’ve been staying somewhere in France ever since. The Order-issued golems still work, Lenalee says, so she contacts them almost every week.

Marie and Miranda had gotten married, the month after he’d visited Kanda and Allen in London. Apparently Marie had wanted Kanda to be there for it before the other’s time was up.

The Generals had split up after the war; the last Allen heard was that Cross was somewhere in China again, and Tiedoll was also in France as a freelance artist. Klaud had gone with Timothy and Krory to Australia; they’d settled down there. And as for the other Generals and Exorcists who survived, they’d all pretty much vanished off the radar.

And Kanda –

“We’ll go visit him soon,” Lenalee promises with a smile. “He’s in London.”

* * *

That night she invites him over to her house for dinner. Komui is away with Reever and Johnny; apparently they’re starting a business together. They talk, and he finds himself returning to days long gone. It’s everything and nothing – he tells her what he can about the places he visited when he was Bookman, about the little punk he had as an apprentice, who became a very capable Bookman himself – and he tells her that he received all her letters.

She doesn’t look surprised at all. “You don’t really think that Kanda kept his word, did you?”

Lavi _almost_ curses, but he doesn’t because he is Lavi, and Bookman, and all of his aliases, and he’s not eighteen anymore.

“I should have known better,” he says instead with a sigh.

“To be fair to him,” she laughs, “He only told me when he was on his deathbed.”

* * *

When she’s cleaning up their dinner (insisting on not letting him do any of it; she's still as stubborn as ever) he pulls out his rucksack and takes out the paper bag that he’s stuffed inside. It's labeled _For Lenalee_ , and she stares at it quizzically when he hands it to her.

“What is this?”

“Open it,” he says instead.

She does so, and pulls out the stack of letters. They are numbered 1 to 39.

He will remember her reaction as one of the most spectacular scenes he has ever witnessed, which is quite a lot considering how many natural wonders he has had the fortune of seeing.

Her mouth falls open, her eyes like violet stars shining as she stares at the numbers on them. “These are – “

“Letters I never sent to you,” he admits. “One every month for the first two years, then one every year after you stopped writing me. The last one is from March this year.”

She opens the first envelope, which is yellowed at the corners.

_20 March 1837_

It is a letter written when they were both still teenagers, barely out of a war way too big for them.

“You never –“

“I was a Bookman, you know. My memory never fails.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Note!** _because I didn't know where else to put this huehue_  
>  I've been using the 1830's as my timeline for all my stories thus far, since Red Strings and even up till now. 
> 
> [This post](http://yullens.tumblr.com/post/144353591870/theory-time-i-like-to-think-im-pretty-good-at), however, has convinced me that this time frame is wrong and is actually too early. But because I've been referencing to the 1830's for the past few fics, I'm not going to change the time frame for this fic (and the next part of this series). 
> 
> That said, I will be changing my timeline reference for all fics after this series to the 1890s and 1850s for current canon timeline and past!timeline respectively~ 
> 
> -
> 
> Do leave a comment or a kudos if you liked this!


End file.
